Dance of The Butterfly
by Chelsea.Miracle
Summary: Vash has returned and all seems well; they've made a new life in the tiny village and Meryl is left to tend for the injured Knives. At first they seem an awkward, angry pair... until their relationship undergoes a remarkable metamorphosis. MVK
1. Chapter 1: A Voice Finally Heard

Disclaimer: I do not own Trigun or any of it's wonderful ideas. I just like writing shoulda coulda woulda fanfics!

**Dance of The Butterfly**

**Chapter 1: A Voice Finally Heard**

The sunlight peeked teasingly into a young woman's bedroom; she met it's gaze with an abrupt move to sit up, a coercing rubbing of the eyes, and a yawn met by a brief stretch. She then climbed out of bed to attain her daily duties. Yet how she _loathed_ them. That woman was Meryl Stryfe, who knew this lifestyle all too well. She grimaced at her appearance in the mirror; tousled, black, modest hair sat uninvitingly on top of her head, the result of maybe three hours of desperate sleep. This was how it had been the past six months.

Why was it so hard to sleep you ask? Well when you are caring for a mass murderer you kind of worry for your life at any given time. Meryl was used to being in intense situations in which she had to think fast, but this was different. This was pure TORTURE. In regards to those times when she made it out due to her problem-solving skills, this was a far cry; sitting almost expectantly like it was the eve of her demise. It was like playing the waiting game of doom.

It was great to have Vash back in her life, she agreed, but the heavy baggage named Millions Knives he brought along with him made her dread the coming months, years, perhaps decades. He was a complete sourpuss; hardly ever spoke but to barely nod a 'yes' and to mumble out a fierce and defiant 'no'. Tending to him was now her full-time occupation because Vash thought it was the kind of thing she knew best since the only real jobs in the village were construction and irrigation jobs, and Meryl was far too petite to carry the load that came along with them. Even though sometimes Knives would harshly reject being bound and bandaged by the human Meryl, she'd stagger on anyway. (Just the beginning of the downsides of caring for an injured psycho.)

What happened to her steady job at the office? Well, we'll get to that…

'My god, another day of pure HELL! It's times like these I really miss the office, but this is the life I chose.' Meryl slipped into her usual garb; a snug-fitting pale skirt with navy panty hose, and a matching top with golden detail. She had put into retirement the long, flowing cape she would wear on the job concealing hundreds of compact derringers. In fact, today she was to write a letter to the Bernardelli Insurance Society of what precautions she was taking in order to make it look like Vash had been doing some real damage. It was an easy thing to do compared to everything else in her life at present.

She pressed on throughout the little, tiny shack that Vash, herself, Millie, and the ungrateful Knives called 'home'. Each day seemed to repeat. It was prosaic, boring, and somewhat aggravating. She wished Vash would've stayed around since troubles were quite small, but he felt he had to pull his own weight, and got a job alongside Millie.

'Yay. Time to do the deed.' She frowned with passion as she silently gripped the clunky, brass doorknob leading into the room that the abomination occupied. 'Keep thoughts to self, Meryl.' She warned herself genuinely, Knives was one to dig deep into your unconscious.

'No eye contact…. No eye contact. Ugh, guess I'll just smile like I should…' She meandered, a moment later collecting her thoughts and packing them away like a skeleton in the closet of her weary brain.

"I see you're awake early for once." She mumbled, standing at the foot of his bed, yet staring idly at the cold, stone floor.

As expected, he nodded in response, it was something all-too familiar. His cold glances were fixated on the tiny woman, as he found other focal points in the room entirely uninteresting. She could feel the hatred penetrating her to the soul, but she soldiered on.

"Are you interested in some breakfast?" She asked innocently enough, clasping her hands together and settling them on her right thigh.

He met her with an eerie silence, nothing new. His gaze upon her weakened and he fixated on the mundane, blank walls of his bedroom. He wasn't going to answer, she supposed. It was times like these when she wanted to grab him by the collar and give him a piece of her mind, but she knew after an offense like that she was surely done for.

'Alright, now he's really starting to piss me off. No stupid head nod or whatever the hell he does…'

She furrowed her brows in frustration and lost her fear in what seemed like a millisecond. The next thing she knew she was sitting in the chair next to his bed staring at him, trying to hide her anger. He, in a state of crossed arms and other mannerisms that accompanied conceit, just smirked.

"Are you going to answer me any time today?" Meryl clenched her fists, but hid it by tucking them behind her back.

He craned his neck robotically in her direction, a blank expression on his face; she noticed his upper lip start to curve, what seemed like his patience uncoiling, his monotonous line of a mouth undergoing a transformation of sarcastic mentality. Once a flat, unemotional visage crumbling to an insane sneer; and before Meryl knew it, he was enveloped in an avalanche of laughter.

He thought her a fool.

Meryl, beyond angry, couldn't bare to look away like a cowering child. Instead she glared into the crystal clear pools of the being that she detested so thoroughly.

"What the hell are you laughing at!?" She belted uproariously. Her reaction only resulted in adding more fuel to the fire; Knives found her response quite comical.

She leaped up from the chair and stood by the doorway. "You can walk can't ya?" She bent herself over so as to pester the leery man.

She thought he would never speak more than the 'no's she had heard him so often utter. She thought he would never voice his intentions past a mumbling indifference.

She was wrong. Very wrong. It was at this moment in time that he first opened his mouth to speak to a woman he at first thought was not worth the voice.

"Are you some kind of imbecile?!" He retorted, his laughter only subsiding slightly.

"Shoo, shoo, get me that breakfast of which you speak so fondly of." He spoke confidently with a gently, mocking wave of the hand. Meryl was utterly peeved. She was, no doubt, inflamed.

Meryl slammed the door upon exiting and stomped into the kitchen.

She felt a tad bit of dizziness coming on, and found she couldn't think straight…

'''Ooooh, so that's what you think of me, huh?" He intruded her most private depths of insight.

'HOW DARE HE!' she thought, struggling to hold herself back. She was sick of playing nice for someone who wouldn't even appreciate it if hell froze over!

His insane laughter clouded her head, causing her to clutch her skull between her palms in attempt to gain control.

Before she knew it, he was gone and out of her thoughts. 

She watched the batter in the frying pan turn slowly to a flat, solid yet flexible pancake. How ironic that she couldn't escape him for a moment; she fed him, bathed him, clothed him, and none of it was to her benefit. She stared feverishly as she cooked a meal for someone she hated with all she had. 

As she uplifted the last pancake and settled it into it's new habitat, a plate, she tensed almost instantly. The feeling of eyes to her back was domineering and obvious. She had a knack for sensing these kinds of things. 

Her accusations were right, as she went to turn around, but only found the haunting whisper of a masochist applied uncomfortably to her neck, rustling her neck hairs like that of the effect a spring breeze had on a wheat field. 

"Filthy spider." 

She froze in contempt, the plate of pancakes in her hands floated staunchly in the air until it hit the floor and shattered. 

Meryl mechanically retrieved the broom and dustpan, sweeping in the remnants of her delicately made pancakes. Time to start anew, she thought. Broken glass and scattered pancake weren't fit for Knives' royal tastes. 

It was hard to see reality, in Meryl's eyes; she lost emotion as she nonchalantly went about cooking fresh pancakes from scratch…

She turned around to find him slung over a chair at the kitchen table. He then smugly snapped his fingers as if he were some sort of king and she, his servant.

Patience wore thin as she set him up for his ideal breakfast, she even had ready a fork and a napkin which she settled onto his lap routinely. 

And so this was how it was… 

Meryl _despised_ being this man's 'worker bee'. 


	2. Chapter 2: The Supremely Awkward Moment!

**Chapter 2: The Supremely Awkward Moment!**

Meryl sat at the small, condensed table in her bedroom. She was utterly exhausted. The past week's events were more than she could handle, and it was times like these she would reminisce about her old life, before she had met the Humanoid Typhoon, no matter how much she loved him.

She started to think about how she missed her family. It was something she barely ever spoke of, yet all the same cared about just as much as her cohort Millie, did.

'I've never once wrote them a letter to reassure them that I'm still okay… _Family_…' Meryl thought, attempting to lift the ancient typewriter off of her barren floor.

With a disheartened sigh, she took to inserting a blank piece of paper; the very first account of her love for her family even though they neglected her, as well.

She could remember them each vividly in her memories. Her father, a tall, thin man with a slightly protruding belly. He always wore plaid flannel shirts and worn jeans because he claimed he felt young in them.

She envisioned him laughing, his cheeks puffy and rosy; how he always was. With dark, wispy hair and deep chocolate eyes. He had high expectations for his daughter, and she was well aware of them. She was very upset, however, that she never achieved them.

Her mother was a small, petite woman like herself except for the fact that she was quiet and solemn almost constantly. She barely ever raised her voice in the most heated of situations.

Her mother then joined her father in the displace of her mind, they were smiling, laughing, like they had done so long ago. She loved them, but she wasn't so sure if they loved her, too, anymore.

Meryl envisioned her mother's face, smiling and laughing; then abruptly turning into what she saw as a sorrowful discountenance. Meryl recognized this look as her way of showing the disappointment in her daughter's path of life.

"Merylin, when are you gonna come home and get married? I've been wanting some grandchildren!" A phrase she heard many times as soon as she came of age.

'Dad…'

Meryl saw his exuberant expression fade to that of dismay.

"You should've married that Vaughan boy! None of this 'get an office job' shit. You're a woman; you should know your place…"

Meryl just remembered why exactly she rebelled in the first place; her parents would just never agree with her way of life, no matter what she did. They wanted her to be a housewife; mopping the kitchen floor, making holiday feasts, tending to the children.

Meryl wasn't ready to be that, she was twenty-six and still knew she wasn't cut out to be 'just a housewife'.

In a fit of new-found rage, she gripped the would-be first letter to her parents and ripped it out of the typewriter, tearing it into as many pieces as she could and scattering them about herself like a personal blizzard of annoyance, just before plunging her head into her arms and letting a parade of tears flow…

Her relief was short-lived as a certain insane man barged into her bedroom.

Meryl, being one to hide her weaknesses, wiped her eyes in embarrassment. She was stronger than he thought she was, and she had to maintain this; she would not let him see her fail. In fact, the word 'fail' didn't exist to Meryl. She felt the only person to please was herself; even if others detested it.

"Change my bandages!" He yelped, fixating intensely on Meryl's back.

"How dare you demand me to change your bandages! If you can WALK THEN CHANGE THEM YOURSELF! What are you doing barging into my room at this hour WITHOUT KNOCKING!?" She screamed, unleashing her true feelings.

Knives only looked at the woman with disgust and, clutching his injured shoulder, slammed the door.

"How dare I?!?" She heard him spit eagerly. "How dare you make me WALK! An injured person, in pain, to WALK to his own caretakers room?!? YOU ARE A DISGRACE, JUST PROVING WHAT FILTH HUMANITY IS. Bitch."

He was so loud, that his voice seemed to carry through the grains of her door; it seemed as if he was standing right in front of her, taunting her.

Yet she couldn't give up; it just wasn't Meryl's style.

Upon his exiting, about twenty minutes later, she collected herself and grabbed the gauze from the supply closet and was off to his room.

'It's times like these when I wish I could escape… but a job's a job!' She grinned, relieving the tension she had just previously experienced.

So, just as he had done to her, she barged into his bedroom without so much as a knock or an "Are you fully clothed?".

This time, she stared him in the eyes, no shame. He was not better than her, and she wouldn't allow him to intimidate her anymore.

Knives was sat up in his bed, sheets ruffled to a lumpy pile receding past his feet. Once again, a look of discontent and some crossed arms.

He looked like a little kid who didn't get his way; a little child with a five o'clock shadow! (This caused Meryl to hold back a chuckle.) He had been careless with himself lately, she observed his matted silver-blonde hair, open pea green button-up shirt, wrinkled beige pajama pants, and sock-less feet.

He was pouty for someone so smug.

She pranced over to his bedside defiantly, taking a seat in the sable wicker chair she had sat in day-after-day without complaint.

"Arm, please." She stated bluntly.

Knives was like a stone statue; just wouldn't budge. Instead, she hastened to grab his arm; an act he reacted stiffly to.

"For someone who complained so long about how they wanted me to change their bandages you sure are picking a fight." She couldn't help but laugh a bit at her latest comment.

Knives gritted his teeth under her close speculations and slowly outstretched his arm, holding his breath dearly.

"Gee, now was that so hard?" She muttered mostly to herself.

She hummed a conservative tune as she wrapped his maimed arm carefully, seeing the bullet holes riddled throughout him daily without effect. Knives could be the biggest baby she'd ever seen; Vash had an endurance for pain much unlike his brother's.

Knives' anger eventually subsided and he went back to his usual clean-slated self.

Now she had to tend to his rather large chest wound, something that required him to take off his shirt. Meryl was still uncomfortable with it to this day.

Firstly, she eased his arms out of his sleeves ever-so gently and dropped his weathered garment on the pavement-like floor; then she took a wet cloth to his bullet-holes.

Knives, being a bit stingy, jumped at the touch; whimpering a little after she had applied a slight pressure.

Meryl always found it hard to avert her eyes from his torso when forced to pursue this act of utter sensitivity.

Ever so slowly she unwound the tinted gauze from his breast area; her eyes struggling from the want to wander a bit.

It was easy for anyone to see why this was so; his scars were few, and his body looked like it was chiseled by a prized sculptor. His chest was defined mercilessly leading down into a bumpy, muscular stomach. His arms, although with an appearance not unlike that of Swiss cheese, still showed typical signs of fitness; long, lanky but toned. His shoulders were broad and manly, the body of someone unbelievably agile. His thigh muscles were incredibly thick, cascading down into a lean calf. Vash, even with his imperfections, had an incredible body and Knives' was even more the embodiment of perfection.

'Sad that such a beautiful man had to go to waste…' she thought to herself unknowingly.

Surprisingly, there was no voice to answer back to her.

"Do you impudent people have anything to read?" He suddenly asked her, failing at hiding his curiosity.

"Well, occasionally Millie reads to herself so I'm assuming she has quite a few books somewhere around here." Meryl had no idea where they were.

"Hm… if you could be so kind to fetch them for me?" He asked unpleasantly.

'Ugh, just call me "Maid Meryl"'

"What was that?" He asked, his tone growing colder and colder as their conversation dragged on.

"I would really appreciate it if you stayed out of my mind for the time being."

"Oh, and it's nice to know a spider like you was visually making a pass at me." He sneered, reverting back to his state of crossed arms.

"Oh don't flatter yourself! Your attitude is absolutely disgusting so it doesn't matter anyway."

"In regards to that, I'd like to note that both your appearance and your attitude is despicable." He liked to play mud-slinger.

"Humph."

"You're going to find me those books." He demanded, regardless of her aversion to him.

"After the comment you just made, I think we'll be taking a rain check on that one." With that, she rose up, and slammed the door in his wake.

'Asshole.'

'I don't think you should throw that around so casually.'

'Shut up!' Who knew that her life would come to daily mental battles with a psychopath.

So, in regards to the situation, she went to her room and heaved a sigh of relief.

'Days like today just seem to drag on and on…' She pondered.

She sifted through her drawers digging for something comfortable to wear to bed. It was about 10 o'clock and the sight of her disheveled bed couldn't look anymore wonderful.

She was delirious with sleeplessness, but as soon as she hit her mocha sheets, all desire left her. Instead, her tiredness was replaced with an endless tossing and turning; a rock constantly being overturned by circumstantial wind out of it's control.

Sick of laying in bed, Meryl rose at about eight A.M., rushing down to the bathroom to take a much-needed shower.

The melodic humming she had taken to the day before returned to her as she expected to push open the door to find an empty bathroom ready for her arrival.

In an almost instantaneous shock, Meryl had pushed open the door to find something she wasn't expecting; a completely and utterly nude Knives staring blankly back at her.

Her eyes widened in a sense of blank terror, certainly not what she wanted to see.

Within seconds she had covered her eyes and slammed the door in what was perhaps the most embarrassing moment of her entire life.

Knives, on the other hand was calm and went about drying himself off.

"Some people need to learn how to knock." he snorted.


End file.
